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FRANCE :
Suburbs of Islam

Gilles
Kepel’s book on Islam in France (Les Banlieues
de l’Islam, Editions du Seuil, Paris)
starts with an invitation: “Would you come
and have dinner with us at home”? This question
and a few others which Gilles Kepel and his fellow
researchers asked from a selection of several dozen
Moslems living in France permit a rough delineation
of four groups of believers: those who would not
sit at the table of a “kaffir” (non
believer); those who would accept it provided the
meat is “halal” (ritually acceptable);
those who wouldn’t mind if they did not have
to eat pork and drink wine; and a fourth group which
accepted the invitation without a second thought.

With this simple question the author starts what
is the most comprehensive study on the attitude
of Moslems in France towards Islam and on the history
of Islam in France. The first mosque was inaugurated
in Paris 60 years ago by the Sultan of Morocco,
but crowds of believers did not create a “Moslem
quarter” in Paris. Although 100.000 Algerians
were living in France between the two world wars,
the big mosque of Paris was always considered as
a “colonial showcase” and remained a
deserted temple.

It took half a century for Islam to become a power
in France: since 1970, more than 600 Islam-oriented
associations and 1.000 praying precincts have been
established in France. Some of the causes of this
Islamic boom are definitely linked to specific French
factors -- there are now between 2.5m and 3m Moslems
in France -- but some of them are tied to the general
situation in the Middle East, to petrodollar affluence,
and to the Iranian revolution. For this reason Gilles
Kepek’s book is of interest for all students
of Middle eastern affairs.

Kepel remarks that at the beginning the French
administration considered with a benevolent eye
the creation of the first “mosques”
in workers dormitories. Created in 1956 for the
“French Moslem Workers of Algeria”,
SONACOTRA labourers’ residences were built
to isolate the Algerian workers from NLF propaganda.
Two decades later, when workers went on strike and
stopped paying their rents to prtotest against bad
living conditions, the press failed to take notice,
writes Kepel. But one of the workers’ main
demands was to get a place to pray. When this demand
spread to factories, the managers were still quicker
to satisfy it because it was easy and inexpensive,
because it seemed to bring a measure of order and
calm in the factories, and because it appeared to
be a measure without political consequences.

Ripple effect

But ripple effect of events in the Middle East
meant that the promotion of the so-called “cultural
identiry” of the Moslem immigrant workers
would have far-reaching consequences. First, the
new wealth of the oil producing countries after
1973 allowed the Gulf states, Libya and Algeria
to invest heavily in Islam in France. Six years
later, the Iranian revolution was seen by all Moslems
living in France as a demonstration of the triumph
of Islam. Henceforth, there was a geometric progression
of the number of praying precincts.

At first all the “mosques” created
in France were bare rooms (sometimes basements,
sometimes in a dilapidated workshop or a garage).
They were clean, but they lacked everything, and
self-styled “worker-imams” were aware
of their shortcomings. Such fertile ground could
not remain uncultivated for long. Gilles Kepel,
the author of an excellent book on the Islamic movement
in Egypt, is quite at ease in analysing the various
Islamic trends from the Middle East and North Africa
which would affect the birth of of Islam in France
-- some of them for purely religious reasons, others
because their influence on a potential mass of several
hundred thousand people could provide precious political
leverage.

Paradoxically, it was a purely religiously inspired
organisation, Jamaat al Tabligh from Pakistan, which
first became interested in the fate of the Moslems
of France. Gilles Kepel devotes a revealing chapter
to this little known but powerful “pietist”
organisation which today controls one of the “cathedral-mosques”
in Paris.

But very quickly two Arab states, each one having
its own concept of Islam, began to act on behalf
of Moslems living in France. The opening of an office
in Paris by the Saudi-based World Moslem League
marked, as Gilles Kepel relates it, a “turning
point in the islamisation of France”. Granting
financial assistance to various local associations
the World Moslem League helped them to become owners
of their mosques, which they had previously rented
as “praying-precincts”. It assisted
the associations to be independent from more or
less benevolent “kaffirs”, but it also
contributed to develop a growing number of conflicts
with local townships which opposed the construction
of too-visible mosques with highly controversial
minarets.

The Paris director of the World Moslem League
told Gilles Kepel that through his office Saudi
Arabia gave 6 million francs in 6 years to various
local associations. But, as the author underlines,
this represents only a small part of the flow of
money arriving from the Gulf through official or
unofficial channels during thse years.

Algeria, while less well-endowed with funds, began
to put up a stiff and mostly successful resistance
to Saudi attempts to control the Moslems of France.
With a population of over 800.000 Algerians living
on the other side of the Mediterranean, Algeria
could not remain passive. Its network of consulates
and its grass-root control of the workers through
the Amicale des Algériens en France were
powerful tools. Gilles Kepel tells in details how
Algiers’ policy unfolded. First, the Algerian
government succeeded in taking over the Grand Mosque
in Paris which had been an object of dispute between
various Arab states. Then, after President Chadli
Benjedid succeeded to power in 1979, Algeria started
a policy of reconciliation with the harkis. These
militias, who fought during the Algerian war of
liberation alongside the French army against the
NLF had been considered for many years as traitors
and prevented, in exile even, from visiting Algeria.
Kepel claims that through its control of the Grand
Mosque in Paris and its reconciliation with the
harkis, Algiers could discreetly encourage Algerians
living in France to become French citizens while
keeping their islamic identity.

Saudi Arabia and Algeria were not (and are not)
the only Middle East and North African states with
a keen interest in the fate of the Moslems of France:
Libya, Morocco (with as many as 450.000 citizens
living in France) and Iran among others have been
trying to involve themselves directly in the affairs
of the Moslems living in France, on the side of
Saudi Algeria or Algeria, or in their own interest.

But Gilles Kepel’s conclusion is that a decisive
chapter is now beginning with the rise of a new
force -- the Moslem citizens of France. Unlike the
Moslems temporarily residing in France, these French
Moslems have all the political rights of French
citizens. Between the harkis, the French converted,
and the French citizens born from North African
or Turkish parents, they number altogether a little
less than a million. But they could constitute an
effective bridge between the mass of the foreign
Moslems living in France and a French society which
may have to reconsider its definition of nationality.

Written by an Arabic-speaking scholar, Les Banlieues
de L’Islam (“The Suburbs of Islam”)
is written in such a way as to be interesting reading
both for the layman and for the student, the journalist
or the politician. It includes fascinating documents,
such as a first hand transcription of some of the
khotbas (lectures) pronounced in different mosques
of Paris. It includes a great deal of original material,
statistics and interviews. Although it fails --
probably deliberately -- to describe certain “subversive”
Islmic forces at work in France, Gilles Kepel’s
book is the most comprehensive and objective study
published so far on a very sensitive subject.